‘Real Housewives of New Jersey:’ Belly flops

Perdonatemi for being so late with this entry. I was too drunk on Nyquil all week to pull it together, but I hope to catch up and not be so unreliably Potatoee-Facey in the future.

SO. We begin this episode with most of the ladies recounting Teresa and Melissa’s fight to their husbands in a completely unstaged way. Because I am certain that Melissa and Teresa went home after the Solstice Party and said nothing to either of the Joes until the camera crews arrived the next day, since that’s how normal married couples interact. Bottom line: Caroline and Albert (who clearly wishes he were doing anything but talking about any of this nonsense) take the controversial position that Teresa is a crazy jealous puttana. Jeff Goldblum, Jr. suggests that Kathy be done with Teresa already, and uses some tortured metaphor about having arm cancer and having to amputate the entire arm, and I don’t think that either of these are things, neither arm cancer nor arm amputations as treatment for arm cancer, but point taken. Kathy, however, can’t amputate her cancer arm cousin, and intends to invite her to their upcoming family’s pool party. Good idea.

NO. YOU STOP THAT, MEATBALL.

At casa il Meatball, Meatball finishes his meatball workout and goes upstairs where he sits (?) in this weird contraption (?) that splays his legs out (?), and there is so much Meatball crotch and now I have to go wash out my eyeballs with red wine and chlorine. Teresa gives Meatball her deluded version of events, wherein Melissa was SO MEAN to her, what with demanding an apology for the hideous thing Teresa said about her to Folletto. Meatball helps calm the situation by declaring that Melissa is a horse-faced tramp who “went” with a bunch of goombahs he knows. All his words because he is so charming. Teresa then adds that Folletto says nasty things about Meatball which she doesn’t share with Meatball because she, unlike Folletto, is not a little pansy. SURPRISE! This infuriates Meatball. WHAT A LITTLE GIRL, Meatball bellows. FOLLETTA IS HIS NEW NAME, declares Meatball Arriabata. Because it turns out people’s feelings sometimes get hurt when their in-laws talk smack about them. GO FIGURE. Meatball Arriabata then announces that Caroline is boring, Kathy looks like a frog (?) and that Rosie is a “butchy boy,” because why not drag them all into it, too, sure. He concludes his meatballdom by asserting to Teresa that she doesn’t need anyone but him, which is super super healthy.

And at casa il Folletto, while tossing a football because that’s natural, Melissa tells her husband about her fight with his sister. But she does so reluctantly, she assures us, because she knows that he loves both her and his sister and that this situation is painful for him. Folletto dismisses Melissa’s worries and explains that talking to Teresa is about as productive as talking to their football, which, yes.

Teresa goes over to Jacqueline’s house for a private training session, and for her workout, Teresa opts to wear a strapless top. Because strapless spandex tops absolutely offer the necessary support for giant fake breasts when you are exercising vigorously. It’s exactly what trainers recommend. Upon Teresa’s arrival, Jacqueline confronts her about making Jac feel put on the spot at the Solstice Party, and Teresa counters that Jacqueline should be unquestionably loyal to Teresa under any and all circumstances, obviously. Jacqueline responds that even though she and Dina are not speaking (WHAT?! I mean I kinda remember this? But I don’t remember the circumstances? And I don’t really care, come to think of it?), she hasn’t forced Teresa to take sides. Teresa just stares blankly at Jacqueline because, TOO MUCH LOGIC. DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Oh, someone better pour me a glass of that sweet purse wine, STAT.

So then the trainer, Jolene, shows up to the house and barks orders at Jac and Teresa from a hallway closet where she is maybe getting her drink on? Is that what the editing is suggesting? I’m pretty sure the producers are calling this Jolene a Nyquilholic who can only “train” the likes of Teresa and Jacqueline with a bottle of Ramona’s Pinot Grigio tucked in her purse. Anyway, during the “workout,” Kathy calls Teresa and invites her to the pool party and everyone promises not to fight in front of the children and I’m sure that is a promise that everyone will definitely keep.

Oh here’s a boring bit about how Caroline and Albert are celebrating their 27th wedding anniversary by buying $80,000 Jaguars and hanging out in their old apartment looking at old pictures (which were actually pretty sweet). Congratulations on being so rich married for so long, Caroline and Albert!

Jacqueline visits with Potatoee Face via Skype. Potatoee Face rolls her eyes and sighs heavily and grunts monosyllabic answers to her mother’s questions and just generally Potatoee Faces all over the place. So, it looks like the whole “Pack your potato sacks, you’re moving to Las Vegas!” plan is working exactly as planned, Lauritas!

Finally, the Goldblum Jrs.’ pool party. Knowing that il Meatballs and il Follettos will both be attending the party, Jeff Goldblum, Jr. instructed his children to not invite their friends under any circumstances because he is one of the few people on this show with good decision-making skills. Other people who are of reasonable intelligence, Caroline and Jacqueline, also decline to attend. Good for them. Finally, people are using their menti.

Because Melissa and Teresa, they are both attending the party, and we all know how this is going to end:

Folletto and Melissa and Stugats and Fagioli and Little Joe and Teresa and Gabagool and Baccala and Mortadella (and presumably Sfogliatelle, but who knows) they all arrive and try their best to ignore one another for a while. But Teresa notices that Stugats is wearing a bathing suit similar to Baccala’s (COPYING COPIER), and when Teresa asks Rosie to make her a margarita, and Melissa offers to take a sangria because she’s “easy,” (that’s what she said, literally), the tension begins to rise.

Somewhere along the course of the afternoon, Jeff Goldblum, Jr. makes the entirely too reasonable suggestion that Folletto and Teresa go to therapy, to which Folletto says, “Pffft.” After chatting with Gabagool, and realizing that he doesn’t know what is going on in his niece’s life these days, Folletto decides to try to speak to his sister and work things out. Things will not be worked out. Instead, Teresa begins crying, accuses Folletto of betraying her confidence, and announces flatly that’s she has lost her brother. Folletto, to his credit, remains calm in the face of this pazzia, and suggests that she give it some time and think about what she’s saying, whether or not she truly wants to cut him out of her life. Teresa demands that Folletto act like the “old Folletto,” i.e. Single Folletto, the Folletto that was at her house every day. You know, before he married Melissa. In fact, this entire problem is somehow all Folletto’s fault, because Folletto didn’t include in his wedding vows a clause wherein Melissa agrees to do whatever Teresa wants/demands forever, the end. ADDITIONALLY, Melissa has two sisters, and Teresa only has Folletto, so why doesn’t Folletto understand that he’s more Teresa’s family than Melissa’s? THAT’S JUST MATH.

After Teresa accuses Melissa of being a terrible aunt who hates all of the children, Folletto suggests that Teresa never wants to admit when she’s wrong, and that she needs to be taken down a notch (or eleventy) to finally see all the damage she has done. FOLLETTO IS THE MEANEST BROTHER OF EVER AND ALWAYS, declares Teresa. Nope, argues Folletto. He’s an “angel from God.” Which is exactly how I would describe him. Everyone involved, actually. All “angels from God.” Meatball most of all.

When Folletto asks Teresa one last time to quit talking crap about his wife, Teresa spits back that Folletto’s been trashing her husband for 11 years now. And if she ever told Meatball about the things Folletto had said, he’d become Meatball Arriabata … and beat Folletto up, finishes Folletto. When Folletto points out that it’s crummy his sister is threatening him, she denies that she’s doing any such thing. She’s merely putting the horse’s head in Folletto’s bed, she thought it would look nice there. If you take that as a threat, that’s your problem, duh. And with that glorious moment of utter denial, Folletto has had basta. As the other adults grab the Meatball children and wrap them in towels, Folletto tells his sister to “get the inferno out of here,” and calls her some rather unpleasant names while storming off. And Teresa, with one last bafangul, she gathers up the bambini and heads back to her meatball house.

I don’t know. I don’t think therapy is gonna work, y’all.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on Bravo.